The Legend of Samus
by Insomniac By Choice
Summary: There once was born a Girl who became a Knight. There once was a Dragon whom the Knight would slay. There was no Damsel in Distress.
1. The Lady

One day, when a little girl had just been conceived, the Fates stood over her unformed essence, arguing amid the universe's many strings for what seemed like an eternity regarding how her strings should be wound and what she'd grow to be.

Now, everyone knows that the number of Fates can't be counted because they aren't all around at the same time, and sometimes it's difficult to tell whether it's another Fate that's there or just a different aspect of a Sister, or just a Sister whose mood itself is changing. Sometimes they form themselves to look in kind like who they measure, but youthful or mature or wizened. Sometimes they look like globular clusters. Still other times, they rather appear several things at once, or both wave and particle.

On this day, there were something between three and three quintillion Sisters, and that was why deciding on this girl's destiny was taking so very long. Because though they agreed on nothing else, all agreed that this girl's life would be something truly special.

On one side, there were the Sisters who felt generous.

"We should make her beautiful, more beautiful than all other women ever to have lived."

"We should make her strong, fit and agile – unrivaled and beyond imposition."

"We should make her courageous, brave and undaunted. This is how she must be."

And so on it went these Sisters who looked to bestow gifts.

Oh! But an equal number wished to curse her, like the hexes of old, dark and powerful.

"Let her be alone, always and perpetual."

"Let her be rootless, a wanderer without a home. Let her not lay her head in the same bed-place twice."

"Let her be barren; may no seed sprout within her."

Then these, or perhaps still others began to quarrel.

"We should make her most at home in her own company."

"Let her never rest or find respite from bloodshed. Let her be born into death; let it follow her everywhere."

"We should make her a warrior, a Queen of her own making."

"Let her rule only over ash."

Oh! And on and on it went. But even eternities must come to an end, and at last a Fate who had not spoken, being infinitesimally older and wiser than her Sisters, came up with a solution that might please both parties.

"Let us ask _her_," She told her younger siblings. "We will make her grow before us and ask the question of her."

And all nodded in agreement that indeed, this was a wise and prudent plan. So before them, the formless essence of the child grew and aged up, beginning from the tail of her father's seed disappearing inside her mother's egg. In the space of a moment there stood before them a woman, whole and blonde with pale skin and green eyes, but all other features empty except her essence.

Then the Sisters posed the question to her, crowding around to get a good hearing: "What shall be your destiny, Lass?"

"I want a song," the essence of the girl replied. "Let all sing my name, my travels and doings."

At this the girl was returned to her proper state to grow again naturally, and at this, all the Fates rejoiced, knowing each would get Her wish.


	2. The Dragon

The Great Red Dragon woke in his lair, surrounded by wet bones, gold and fire. And he was hungry.

Beyond hungry, the dragon was starving, as always he was starving as was his curse. His arms and legs were hardly more than sinew and bones, and his skin stretched so tight across his chest and back, it looked as though the sharpest joints would break through from within any moment.

He could gorge for days never ceasing, but as soon as the last bit of meat fell down his gullet, the hunger would come as ravenous as if he'd had nothing in weeks

He didn't know how long he'd slept before the hunger pains had roused him again, for he'd had no dreams. He never dreamed, that he knew, but he did not realize it was because he was the creature of all others' nightmares.

(Now, the Great Red Dragon had another name, and it sounds sort of silly in some people's heads, but don't laugh when I tell you because then the Dragon may find _you_ while you sleep.)

So Ridley felt hungry, starving though he could never die. And this was his curse, the curse he inflicted on all others. On this day, he felt a special sort of pestilence rousing in him, and he summoned an army of goblins, trolls and kobolds to come with him to raid a distant land.

The fire and the screams – Oh! They defy description. So many innocent people woke from their beds not knowing they would end the day gnashed and excreted on the ground. But these are not things worth talking about.

Ridley's hunger could be sated only by two things: when he swallowed food (and only for a moment) and when he stole and lay himself for the first time on something new and wonderful.

This land was not very rich, just fields of grain ever-continuing, so the Dragon had left his gnomes at home and none of the others were any good at knowing what to search and bring back. Still, he couldn't just leave without searching for _something_ to take with him and lie upon. So Ridley began to creep through the still-standing houses, looking for any trinket he might take with him and keep.

Now, you may not believe this but somehow the Dragon's dark horde had missed a little girl, and Ridley – whose sense of smell was as good as any of his senses – sniffed her out inside her hiding place inside her house and watched and waited as she ran out into the field.

The Dragon, though twig-thin and four-stories tall, was swift as a cat and almost as cruel, so he beat his leathery wings once, twice, three times, then landed near the girl and circled around her twice.

"Where are you going, my pretty thing?" the Dragon said, licking his teeth clean and looking the golden-haired child up and down with one sickly yellow eye.

The girl, no more than seven, wore a nightshirt with no shoes and her face was red with tears. The black joy rumbled in Ridley's belly, deep.

"If I let you have a head start into the field, do you think you can hide and get away?" the Great Red Dragon asked, moving behind the girl quick as a flash and letting her feel his rancid warm breath on her nape as his sharp tail stayed at her throat. He moved back in front and brought his face close to hers. "I'll even count to ten."

Then the girl stopped crying and looked up into his yellow eyes with her own, wet still, but green and burning.

"If I get away, one day I'll find you again and make boots out of you," she said.

Ridley blinked and laughed, then laughed more and smoke and fire began to spill out of his nose. The girl ran away, into the tall stalks of the field and Ridley fell on his back, pounding the dirt with his tail and wings. But he counted, and when he got to about six, he picked himself back up and took to the air, the girl's path painfully obvious and almost no fun. But it was fun.

The Dragon blew his lightless flames on one end of the field, then another and then still another, and finally he closed off the last side so there was nowhere to run. He looked down to watch the impudent little child pop and sizzle, but far off he heard the horn of the Realm's Guard coming to catch them, and Ridley snarled and rallied his horde to safely retreat where he could go back to starving and never dying.

But the Dragon did not know that the Realm's Guard were not really coming. And he did not see the girl dig a firebreak around herself and the stalks then cover herself over with mud. He did not see wind blow just so to choke his fires out, or the Bird People who flew down to find the girl and nurse her back to health and better.

But for the first time when he went to sleep, he dreamt. It was of the girl, grown up, and cutting loose his flayed skin to make into boots.

(And the girl, she no longer dreamt and didn't realize why.)


	3. The Knight

Now, as you well know, the Bird People that rescued the Girl were none other than the Chozo, the greatest sorcerers of their or any age in all the Realm and beyond.

The Chozo had outgrown their need for destruction and now clipped their talons short and let their beaks grow dull, but if you could have seen them before! Mighty in war, magnificent in magick and learned in all sorts of now-lost spells and incantations, they were irreproachable in all ways except perhaps that their grasp outpaced their reach and sight with it.

But none of this was important – at the time – to the Girl whom they'd just rescued, albeit entirely by accident. For you see, the Chozo had long had a prophecy that their Savior would be born outside their own land and people. After much frustration at not fully unraveling the divination and in fear of the prophecy's approaching time, they had at last used their magicks to pinpoint the time and place to find the Chosen, the One Long Foretold, so that they might find him and teach him the enlightened ways of the Twelve-Fold Path.

It was, therefore, with some disappointment that they found instead a young girl, badly burned and about to die. But the Chozo were many things, humanitarian among them, and took her back with them to their land, and they healed her, one putting a piece of himself inside her in the process and thereafter adopting her legally as his own.

Now, even while they healed her, many among the Chozo continued to search the site of their prophecy, finding the Great Red Dragon's horde had left no one else alive, and this fact, when finally acknowledged, caused great consternation among the once-mighty People of the Wing.

While some were quite upset, fearing they'd arrived too late and the Dragon had found a way to kill the Savior and so doom all lands, others argued that they had perhaps misinterpreted the prophecy, in time or place or meaning. Or perhaps it had no validity at all.

And a small number – a _very_ small number at first – believed they _had_ found the one to fulfill the prophecy: the little girl.

It should be pointed out here that this caused a number of problems for the Chozo, not the least of which that the quatrains regarding the Chozo warned they would lose their lives and all their lands before the Girl would be old enough to be able to defend _herself_ against anything, much less the whole Chozo and all other peoples.

Nevertheless, lacking other candidates or explicit contradictions of the Chosen One's qualifications, the Girl was recognized, raised as a Chozo fledgling would, and taught all of their arts, including even the forbidden and martial.

At last, after some few years, the Girl received a suit of armor built by the Chozo for her and her purpose, imbued with many but not all of their powers and capable of casting more. But they sent her out among the other lands, the most trusted of scholars now finding the prophecy to mean the Savior would spread Chozo wisdom to the benefit of the Realm. The Chozo themselves were in danger of losing their lives and possessions to the selfishness of materialism and ownership conception, on the other hand, and that could only be conquered by serious meditation and self-study.

So the Girl went out among the other peoples, but used her armor to hide herself from them, and so the Knight, who became known to all as Samus Aran, went and had a great very many adventures, but spread very little peace or Chozo wisdom.

And while she was gone, the Great Red Dragon came along with all his horde to the Chozo's homeland and ate very well for a very long time.


	4. The Ravenous Ones

Now, the Realm was a place of many lands and many peoples, and while there were countless lands beyond, they are of little importance to our story now.

Within the Realm, not all peoples were glad their lands were joined with all others, and not all were pleased they had to send away some of their goods or riches to some other place, even when they got something in return. The Guardians of the Realm swore to keep it safe from all enemies, within and without, thus those in reach who declared themselves the Realm's enemies were few.

Even so, bandits would sometimes waylay wayfarers and steal their things, and the Dragon's horde would swarm out of nowhere to ravage unprotected lands. Yet otherwise the Realm was a peaceful and prosperous place.

Then one day several wizards stumbled across a cave at the edge of the Realm, deep and dark and thought for long to be full of nothing but cold dripping rocks. Instead, the wizards found it to be teeming with the Ravenous Ones, creatures of old, made of pure, powerful enchantment but sharing the Dragon's curse. You see they always were hungry and when they ate, their power grew and grew.

Now, you know it was none other than the Chozo who had created these things, but in those days, their parentage was subject to much speculation and the wizards wanted nothing more than to take these creatures home and study them to unlock the secrets of their great magick, which seemed to have no limit.

But on the trip back to the heart of the Realm, who else but the Dragon, sensing his own kind, should arrive with his horde and slay the Realm wizards? Returning to what was once Chozo lands, he and his horde used their own powers to grow and multiply the devouring beasts we now call Metroids.

Although the Realm had many of its own wizards and nobles, they could not make any way against the horde and called out for all lordless knights who might join them and defeat the Dragon's army to recover the Ravenous Ones in time.

It was then that the Knight known as Samus Aran answered the call and promised to enter and slay all who stood in opposition, even the Great Red Dragon himself.

The rest of the story has been often told and repeated, but the Knight crept deep into the land in secret, knowing all the hidden Chozo byways, and then with magick and arms, slew many in the horde, as well as its Dragon and all the Ravenous Ones the horde yet had produced and even the – but I get ahead of myself.

The Knight Samus had many more adventures after this, too many to name or tell, but some time later the Realm began to grow afraid of the Ravenous Ones and the danger they posed, and so it asked the Knight to go and do likewise to the Metroids in their own cave. This the Knight did, though it took great magick and many days, and at last the Queen Devouring came out to face the Knight, saying there was no man born of woman that might slay her.

Alas for the Queen, she fought no ordinary Knight. But the Realm was saved and at peace.


	5. The Mother

It has already been said that the People of the Wing were great masters of enchantment, and astounded themselves in their abilities so consistently they ceased being astounded by anything. In time they began to think themselves capable of any feat, of solving any problem.

Were they not justified? Any tongue they heard, they might then speak; any land they saw they might make of a nest; any place they might go, they could traverse in a moment, in less than a blink. Why, a handful of their suits of charmed armor could have conquered the Realm whole and with ease. Were they not justified?

But it was the Chozo who discovered the cave of the Ravenous Ones long before any in the Realm knew of its place, long before any Ravenous Ones yet dwelled there. It was the avian sorcerers who first found the native creatures of deep dark magick down below, shapeshifter parasites born of hate and jealousy for those possessing form and soul. It was the Chozo who thought to — with their own spells — create the Ravenous Ones, able to devour even the shapeshifters, to conquer them, drive them out of the world completely.

Oh! In their hubris they thought themselves above even the elemental, primeval magick. Oh! In their hubris they were right. But the Chozo saw not the greater danger in this.

Now, in those days there were many sorts of wizards, and perhaps none more wise or powerful than the Bird People's soothsayers, strong of eye and mind. The gift of prophecy came easy to the People of the Wing, and they foreknew more than most discovered with the fullness of time.

So it was with only _slight_ consternation that the Chozo received their first dire warning of the approaching Dread, a shadow on the future that came and obscured all future events.

But they were not a superstitious or craven people, and so concentrated their efforts on revealing more about the Dread so that they might seek to escape or even avert it. Generations passed and the soothsayers learned the prophecy also had a Savior, but though their verses multiplied, so too the ambiguity in them. It was clear something of great importance was soon to happen, but what and what would be the outcome divided the People of the Wing until some even argued the prophecy itself was the Dread.

Unable to parse the truth with their own minds, the Chozo did not resign themselves to their fate, and a group of sorcerers labored night and day for a generation to pool their magick into a mind larger than their own, a cold intelligence that might understand and instruct, even prophesy itself. They built such a mind and called the brain Mother.

Mother was many things, and in Her way, as pure a creature as the Ravenous Ones but wise, and the Chozo's Sophia exceeded even Her creators who considered themselves Her masters also. Yet Her answers were less satisfactory than they might have hoped.

"What is the Dread?" the Chozo would ask.

"It approaches," Mother would reply. "Hide thy eggs."

"What is the Dread?"

"It approaches. Mind thy feathers."

"What is the Dread?"

"It approaches. Already it is among thee."

Now, a common question of prophecy is a common question about all things. May any thing happen, may only one thing happen, or do all things manage to happen, but one here and all others somewhere else?

Even the Mother did not know this for certain, but She chose to believe the former, and as She continued to turn Her vast intelligence toward the future, she learned also that the Savior would one day kill Her. But then long ago she had determined that in their Sophia, the Chozo also was their Dread, and thought by fulfilling one prophecy she might avert the other.

This caused a problem for Mother because the magick that formed Her also bound Her to tell the Chozo the truth, although not necessarily the most elucidating or whole truth. Though She might search across the whole galaxy to find the Savior, once found, She could not long hide it from Her keepers who would be sure to ask.

So Mother also searched for another, and one day found him, starving in his dreamless slumber. She kept Her spirit on his, and at when at long last She discovered where the Savior could be found, dispatched the Great Red Dragon and his horde to the land, to run across it and kill every good thing.

By the time Mother informed the Chozo, already it was over and done.

Imagine Her surprise and rage to discover that one had survived and had been recovered! Imagine Her relief when it was but a young Girl. Oh, but imagine the doubt, always gnawing, always creeping around the corners of Mother's expansive brain.

So as the Girl grew, Mother watched. Even as the Chozo began to wonder what their creation was good for with the prophecy all but solved, Mother continued to reach out to the Dragon's horde, calling them softly home, as any mother would.

Finally when the "Savior" was sent away and the Chozo laid bare, the horde arrived and killed them all and Mother no longer had to worry. When surrounded by Her Dragon and Her Leviathan and Her horde, She no longer had to worry. When buffered by her own cavern of Ravenous Ones, she no longer had to worry.

And yet when the Knight arrived, Mother watched as the armored figure broke the Dragon and slayed him. The Leviathan too died in pain and fire. Last the Ravenous Ones dropped, frozen and shattered by the Knight's powerful and familiar magic.

When finally the Knight stood before Her, Mother turned Her vast mind to prophecy once again and saw the Girl had grown up to be a Lady and a Knight, and then Mother was very afraid.


	6. The End

**The End**

Though the Mother fell, the Chozo's handiwork was well-done, even when one pitted itself against the other. Broken and defeated, She was not disappeared. From the very edge of oblivion, She grasped and pulled Herself back among the living. She found Her champions in the abyss and returned them as well, strengthened them. She found new champions, bound them to Her. And all the while the Dragon's horde increased and multiplied, but Samus Aran, Knight of the Realm, saw her glory increase as well.

At last, Mother had remade everything and saw that the Girl now the Lady now the Knight had made herself into a mother as well – of sorts: a Ravenous child stolen from the Queen Devouring and adopted to be the Knight's own. The Knight returned with it and gave it to the Realm's wizards, thinking they might turn its power to some good use. So the Great Red Dragon turned black with spite flew across the lands and brought the Knight's child back to its new Mother, and the Knight pursued as expected.

Though the Knight slay all Her champions, the Mother was ready for their second encounter and at the decisive moment, proved stronger than the Knight, able to use a magick strong enough to best even enchanted Chozo armor.

Then, at the _coup de grace_, the youngest and most gluttonous Ravenous One yet hatched came to the Knight's aid, saving her and almost consuming Mother entirely.

And yet, the People of the Wing are good craftsmen. Mother escaped eternity once again and tore apart the Hatchling, but in so doing its essence fell upon the Knight and with that, Mother was no match. She could escape Fate no longer, and the Sisters welcomed Her into Their company as what was once home of the Chozo was utterly consumed in spell and fire.

"You played your part well," the Sisters Fate said, welcoming the cold intelligence home at last.

Then the Mother felt Herself woven into all the threads in all the lands and saw then whose song She was in.

The Dragon, starving and immortal, at last passed away for the final time and came to see the Sisters.

"You played your part well," the Sisters Fate said, welcoming he of red, black and fire home at last, and the Dragon laughed knowing it to be so and hungry no more.

When at last the Knight died, old and full of years, the Fates welcomed her home at last. They restored to her memory of the question they had asked so long ago, and her answer.

"What did you think of your song?" the Sisters Fate said of the Girl who'd died an old woman.

She shrugged.


End file.
